little."

"Why, that is the ship I am going to join," I exclaimed; "didn't Captain
Collyer tell you?"

"No, he has not as yet communicated that important matter to me,"
answered Mr Jonathan Johnson, twisting his huge nose in a comical way.
"But give us your flipper, my hearty,--we are to be shipmates it seems.
I like you for your dauntless tongue; if you've a spirit to match,
you'll do, and I promise you that you shall some day hear what you shall
hear."

The coach stopped at the George. A seaman, who announced himself as Sam
Edkins, Captain Collyer's coxswain, came up, and touching his hat
respectfully to Mr Johnson, helped me off the coach.

"Well, Edkins, have all the officers joined yet?" asked the boatswain.

"All but the second lieutenant; he's expected aboard to-day, sir," was
the answer.

"What's his name, Edkins? I hope he's not a King's hard bargain, like
some lieutenants I have fallen in with within the last hundred years,"
said Mr Johnson.

"No, sir; he's no hard bargain," answered Edkins. "I heard the captain
say his name is Bryan, the same officer who, with twenty hands, cut out
a French brig of seven guns and ninety men the other day in the West
Indies."

"All right; he'll do for us," observed Mr Johnson, with a patronising
air. "By the bye, Edkins, have you received any directions about this
boy?"

"No, sir; only that he was to go aboard at once."

"Very well, then, I'll take him. Come, youngster--what's your name?"

"Please, sir, it be Tobias Bluff; but I be called Toby most times,"
answered my young follower, evidently awe-struck with the manner and
appearance of Mr Johnson. Not an inch did he move, however, from my
side.

"Come along, boy," cried the boatswain in a thundering tone which might
have been heard half down the High Street.

"Noa," said Toby, looking up undauntedly at him; "I has a said I'd stick
to the young squire, and I'll no budge from his side, no, not if you
bellows louder than Farmer Dobbs's big bull."

Never had the boatswain been thus bearded by a ship's boy. His black
eyes flashed fire--his nose grew redder than ever, and seizing him by
the collar of his jacket, he would have carried him off in his talons,
as an eagle does a leveret, had not Edkins and I interfered.

"You see, Mr Johnson, the boy has the hay-seed in his hair, and doesn't
know who you are, or anything about naval discipline," observed the
coxswain. "If you'd let him stay with the young